The present invention relates to a robot system for measuring dust and particles accumulated in a duct, which can indirectly measure the amount of accumulated dust and particles in a duct and can display the measured value at real time in a remote place.
In a duct installed in a building or other facilities, mold or bacteria are proliferated in dust accumulated in it (bacteria may be proliferated sometimes to about 100,000 bacteria per m3). These bacteria or mold are blown out or diffused through outlet of the duct into rooms, and it is reported that this may cause hospital-acquired infection in hospitals or food poisoning at restaurants and the like.
The measurement of the accumulated dust and particles has not been performed in the past, nor any method for such measurement in the duct has been known.
The measurement of the amount of dust accumulated in the duct is very important in making decision as to when cleaning should be performed to clean up the inner space of the duct, or in identifying how far the accumulated dust has been cleaned up after duct cleaning.
However, if it is tried to measure the amount of the accumulated dust by setting an access point at each of the measuring points, working efficiency would be very low, and it is almost impossible to perform the measurement of the dust in such manner.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a system for measuring dust, by which it is possible to efficiently measure the amount of accumulated dust in a duct and to display the measured value at real time in a remote place.
To attain the above object, the system according to the present invention comprises a running device moving in the duct by remote-controlled operation, being equipped with an accumulated dust separator, a dust concentration measuring unit and a video camera, means for measuring the dust separated and turned to loose state by said accumulated dust separator using said dust concentration measuring unit and for transmitting the measured data to a data processing unit, and a display unit for displaying an image including numerical values and graphs prepared by said data processing unit.
In fact, the system of the present invention is designed in such manner that the dust accumulated in a duct is separated by an accumulated dust separator and is turned to loose state to float in the air, and the amount of the dust is determined by the dust concentration measuring unit. As a result, the amount of the accumulated dust is indirectly measured. Further, the measuring unit is placed on a running device so that it can be freely moved to any measuring point.
The above and other objects and advantages of the invention will become more apparent from the following description.